


Four Out of Five

by SpellsOfScarlet



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: China sorrows can’t emote, Gratuitous creative license, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, chilling in a murder pit, five feet apart, legally, stab wounds, two bros - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:48:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27990288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpellsOfScarlet/pseuds/SpellsOfScarlet
Summary: When a simple business venture ends at the bottom of a serial-killer’s pit, both China and Tanith are forced to work together to find their escape.
Relationships: (pre relationship), Tanith Low & China Sorrows, Tanith Low/China Sorrows
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Skulduggery Pleasant Fic Exchange 2020





	Four Out of Five

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adlerobsessed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adlerobsessed/gifts).



> Hi! I’m so happy to be taking part again this year. Adlerobsessed, I hope you enjoy!

  
Above them, barely a slither of the moon is visible, swathed as it is in a lake of deep blue. Its feeble light washes the road in a pathetic, silvery glow- which Miss Low, interestingly, hasn’t yet decided to illuminate with her headlights- and unless she strains, she can’t make out more than a stretch of four metres ahead of them. Perhaps this car, derelict as it is, is no longer equipped with such luxuries as headlights. 

China wouldn’t know these things. China doesn’t drive.

From the way that Tanith is commandeering the steering wheel- hunched over as if it’s an opponent she’s attempting to choke to death- she would assume that her chauffer isn’t _overly_ fond of the idea either. It isn’t a grand revelation, she supposes. After all, when has she ever seen the woman travelling by more than two wheels? 

An involuntary shudder trickles through her body. 

In another life, perhaps, she can begin to respect the appeal of a bike. They’re faster than cars, harder to track too, and there’s something parallel to be drawn about the thrill of them to that of riding a horse: the rush of the open air, the tenuous control of a beast far more powerful than the man attempting to tame it…

If Cillian ever discovered that she’d just compared him to something so garish, he’d probably faint with the shock of it. Initially, when Tanith had proposed that they take the bike, China had fared the same. 

Which creates a rather irritating twist of irony, in that each time she thinks to complain, she’s quite immediately reminded of her own role in establishing the situation. In fact, remarks the sour little voice of her subconscious, with just a little conviction, she could’ve avoided this little road-trip entirely. She could’ve, for example, hired someone far less capable to go in her place. She could’ve threatened Renn into running a high-end Taxi service. She could’ve taken a walk. A very brisk walk. 

Unfortunately, hindsight is a gift reserved only for the China of the present, and her original thinking remains true regardless: ambushes have a pesky tendency to lose their edge when one’s partner arrives ten minutes later than oneself, and she doesn’t entirely believe that Tanith understands a concept as complex as time. 

The edges of her lips twitch upwards with the thought. Living, breathing skeletons; the faceless ones incarnate on Earth; China Sorrows and Tanith low… _partners_. 

Had Cassandra Pharos foreseen this in her tea leaves? She’d likely have choked.

Methodically, China’s gaze flits back to the woman in the driver's seat. One thing she’s already learnt from this escapade is that she’s far more interesting to observe than she ever would have suspected. 

Her calloused knuckles, China notices firstly, are bleached white with tension. The adrenaline that she knows is beginning to generate beneath that skin, like electricity in a circuit, is almost palpable, and periodically her fingertips twitch towards the three-foots worth of sword that rests in the footwell like a bag of milk and bread. Every so often, she chooses instead to tuck an unruly strand of hair behind her ear to quench the urge for action. Today, it’s thrown over her shoulders in what China can only assume is an impractical tangle of silvery waves, pooling in the creases of her brow leather.

“Do you mind if I put the radio on?” Tanith asks, then, looking over. 

China’s startles a little - not because the question is indecent or particularly surprising, but rather because the last four minutes and thirty-three seconds are the longest she thinks the woman’s ever gone without speaking a word, and she feels as though they should be celebrating a personal record. 

“Yes.”

Her answer processes visibly upon Tanith’s face. She can almost hear the little cogs whirring in her brain, clicking into place as she watches the woman decide to turn and jab vigorously at the buttons anyway. “If it’s anything from this century,” she warns, “I’m getting out of this car.”

“Oh I’d _love_ to see you try.”

A little while later, following some truly scintillating conversation (the radio had put up a valiant effort, but something had unfortunately interfered with the frequency) they’re finally parked in the lay-in of a dingy little country lane. As far as she can see, there aren’t any light sources for miles, only a web of tiny, twisted towpaths. The smell of the country is pungent. She tries very hard to pretend it doesn’t exist. 

Smoothing her hair, China watches Tanith expertly sling her sword over her broad shoulders, and leap out of the vehicle. Her figure vaults out into the darkness, and lands with a sickening, distinguished squelch. 

She grimaces. 

“C’mon!” Tanith calls in a sing-song voice, already a way down the road. “It’s only a ten minute walk…”

 _In a trench_ , is the detail that she neglects to add. Offering a wordless apology to both her boots and her dignity, China lets the passenger door swing open, and they fall into step aside one another. It’s hard to see such things clearly in the pitch black, but she’s almost certain that same smug little smile has taken up permanent residence upon Miss Low’s face. She scowls, and feels the forces balance. 

“How valuable is this book, then?” Tanith asks a second later, apparently insistent upon disturbing the peace of companionable silence. 

“Priceless.”

“What’s the point of that?” 

China blinks slowly.

“I mean if it’s priceless, how are you supposed to sell it?” 

“Why would I sell it?”

Tanith shrugs. “To pay for those earrings?”

China has barely opened her mouth to retort, when she’s cut off by a sarcastic tirade. “Wait. No. Don’t tell me, I can guess - you broke into a tomb, and you plucked them from the corpse of an enemy.”

There are a particular pair of sapphires - two invaluable, exquisite pieces clasped in fine white gold - that may have fallen into her possession through such unconventional means. They looked far better against her colourings than they did against the pallor of a dead woman; it wouldn’t have been fair to their legacy to leave them to rot. She takes excellent care of them. 

The simple stone clusters she wears now, though, originated in an ancient, powerful line of mages and happened to be brought to her attention by the former Prince of Sweden. 

“They were gifted to me by an admirer,” she explains. 

“Of course they were.” 

As they walk onwards, the ceaseless mud has the good grace to thin and turn to a scattering of gravel above firmer ground. The scenery, though - the fields either side of them, endless stretches of emptiness and cobbled brick walls - never change. The last time that she’d seen anything remotely linked to civilisation was at least an hour back. He’s chosen his dwellings well, she remarks, for a person who doesn’t want to be found. 

Myles Soto is a name she’d pried from the lips of a dead man, whose days were numbered long before she’d found him, and, unfortunately, considerably shorter following. 

According to those unfortunate enough to know of such a miserable existence, he’s a nasty waste of skin and bones. Over the last year, four young sorcerers, each of them female, all of them elemental, had disappeared without so much as a trace - apart from the several leading directly to here. Nothing concrete enough for the likes of the sanctuary, though. 

From the house they’ve come to stand in front of now, China would convict him without hesitation. 

What was perhaps once a quaint little farmhouse now marks the land it intrudes upon like an unidentifiable stain upon a mattress. Moonlight seeps into the cracks of its walls, which seem to jut out at odd angles. Great wooden boards are nailed haphazardly across the windows; wood which is warped, and rotted with damp. In fact, the entire place looks as though it remains perpetually wet - which isn’t surprising, as what may have been a lawn is now nothing more than a swamp of dark, festering mud, oozing at the base of the bricks. 

“Very murdery,” says Tanith, eloquently. China has to agree. 

Of course, she doesn’t pretend to be interested in the feeble and fleeting crows of morality, which Skulduggery and Valkyrie seem to hold so dear. If she were, then these earrings would never have come into her possession. And then where would she be? 

When the bounty hunter had appeared at her home seeking information, she’d honestly been taken by surprise. Neither of them, she thought, were under the illusion that their relationship was amicable. They tend only to tolerate one another when it’s absolutely unavoidable - end-of-the-world-as-they-know-it unavoidable - and even then their business is as cold and concise as possible. Even though China doesn’t make a habit of holding grudges that aren’t profitable, she’s well aware how often she finds herself at the end of them. 

Tanith, looking exceedingly sour, had made it explicitly clear that coming to her was a last resort - insisted it, even, as she stated her business. She needed an address, badly enough to come to China in the hopes of leaving with it, and luckily for the both of them, the situation suited China more than she could’ve known. To put it simply, Myles Soto has something of hers, and she wants it back. If Tanith wants to lock him up beforehand, that only serves to make her endeavour considerably easier. 

After all, why bother to do the work, when someone else can? It’s a rather efficient deal, if she does say so herself - and she does. 

“Here’s the plan,” Tanith declares boldly. 

She raises her eyebrows. Tanith either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, and ploughs on regardless. 

“You go straight in the front door and incapacitate our guy,” she begins, animatedly, conducting an imaginary orchestra with her pointer fingers. “Then, whilst he’s distracted, I sneak around the side and let myself in through the back. I scout the area for any defences, take out any cameras, meet you in the middle, and _BAM_ \- we cuff him,” she pulls a pair of wretched sanctuary cuffs from her pocket, “and drag him out of there.” 

When she’s finished outlining her masterpiece with a flourish, and the invisible orchestra halts, mid-bar, she stares, expectantly. China stares back, at the defining strategist of the 21st century. 

“It’s succinct,” she offers.

The staring intensifies. 

“Spirited.”

Two little holes begin to bore, with the heat of it. 

“But I’m afraid I was thinking of something else.”

“Oh, _really_?”

“You do all that kicking and flipping,” she suggests, “and I’ll go and find my book.” 

The groan her statement elicits is akin to what China can only assume is the common reaction of children when denied something. China wouldn’t know. China was never something as insolent and helpless. 

“The mighty Tanith Low doesn’t wish to fight?”

Remaining true to the impression previously established, she rolls her eyes. 

“Couldn’t you just do the thing?” 

Words, China often thinks, are wonderful things. If only people would use them. 

“You know,” she explains, “the _oh Miss Sorrows, my eyes hath never seen true beauty until this night_!” 

“You know Shakespeare?” 

Tanith’s brow knots. “That’s what that is?”

She waves it away, mindlessly. 

“Either way, it won’t be necessary. I’ll leave all of the confrontation to you.” 

“What if I need help?” 

“If I hear you scream,” she placates, “I’ll consider finding my way to investigate.”

When her proposal isn’t met with immediate indignation, she considers the whole thing well and truly decided. She reserves one last moment to look back at the house, at the darkness that clings to it, and tries to imagine what it is that lurks within. 

“I still don’t see why we can’t do my plan,” Tanith grumbles, a moment later. “It’s the superior plan. Which side won the war, _hm_?” 

China’s plan begins at the stroke of midnight. 

Leaving her valiant partner to take the front line, she slinks around the back, careful to stride between chunks of stone and solid ground so as not to be enveloped by the ooze. The back door, when she finds it, is both unlocked and unprotected, so she lets herself in with so little as a push. 

Strangely, the interior of the place is almost passable. 

For such a miserable excuse of a building, she had only dared hope that the ceiling wouldn’t collapse whilst she was inside, and perhaps as an added extra, that the mould would be breathable. But aside from the jars lining the shelves of this room, which are far from the worst thing China has come across in a murderer’s lair, it’s habitable. Fairly well decorated, too. This particular room she assumes as a kitchen, of sorts, with it’s little wooden table and chair tucked in the corner. There are a variety of strange and mysterious things lying around - contraptions that she can’t name, and strange… _parts_ , floating in viscous liquids - but nothing of particular interest or concern, so she moves out into the corridor. A tall jar of unspecified eyeballs winks in her direction, as she passes by. 

Offensive only in its wallpaper choice, the disconnect of the house’s outside appearance continues out into the hall, where the decor remains remarkably civil. She walks along for longer than seems natural, for such a small place, but finds nothing but polished floorboards and strange paintings tacked to the walls. Her eyes have begun to adjust to the darkness, allowing her to appreciate the artwork. 

When she reaches the front door, though, she realises she must have missed a turning. She swivels on her heel, electing to focus properly this time, and then stops dead a second before she smashes heads against Tanith.

“I don’t recall screaming,” she whispers, at a volume that negates the choice entirely. 

She’s dangling completely vertically upside-down like an oversized bat; her feet are planted against the ceiling, and her hair hangs around her face like a halo. 

“You were too quiet,” China reasons, “I thought you might have died.” 

“First of all, I’m living forever, and secondly, he isn’t here.” 

Craning to peer beyond the human chandelier, she finds only more of the same unsettling emptiness. As she searches amongst the gloom, though, she’s certain she catches a flash of movement at the very corner of her vision. 

“Are you sure about that?” She asks, stepping to the side. Tanith unsheaths her sword. 

“I _was_.”’

Again! She’s sure of it, closer this time. There’s only a glimpse, a momentary flash, but enough to perceive the shift of something amongst the shadows. 

“Bear with me,” she orders. 

Lifting her pointer finger, China presses once, firmly, against the flat ridge of her right eye socket. In response, the tiny symbol there begins to sing. It calls forth her magic in a warm rush of energy. One second, there is nothing but the gloom, and then the next her vision explodes in a sea of electric blues and greens, centred by a great mass of burning red shaped like a certain upside-down, muscular woman. 

Sometimes, she remarks, she simply excels. 

She turns around, surveying the close proximity for heat signatures. People would kill for the rights to this little manoeuvre. People _have_ killed. 

Before the smirk ever truly reaches the corners of her lips, though, the point of a finger jabs into her temple. 

The touch - barely a millisecond of contact, a momentary brush of skin upon skin - rings out in her skull like a hammer swung full-force against a bell. 

It’s a sound that reverberates throughout her very core, and distantly, she feels her magic begin to buzz. The sensation is… indescribable. Electrified, the particles of her being bounce against one another in a frenzy. The speed of it accelerates, the energy accumulates, until the magic in her blood is vibrating at an incomprehensible frequency. 

For a second, she fears something will give - but then just as suddenly as it had arrived, the feeling passes. All of the energy in China’s body leaves her lips in a small _whoosh_ of air, and the world tilts - 

and 

falls 

away. 

Somewhere, at a particular point in time and space, the ground is cold, and hard. A rainbow-tinged vision of blonde hair and twitching muscles swims in and out of focus, splayed across the concrete. She tries to reach out. The message doesn’t relay. 

Then everything is black. 

And it doesn’t matter anymore.

  
  


* * *

China crashes into consciousness. 

Residual adrenaline crackles in her blood; the shock of a raw, instinctual type of panic screams at her muscles to get up and _move_ , though she doesn’t know what it is that she’s fighting. She jolts upright from where she must have been out cold, and a terrible, shooting pain spikes behind her eyeballs. 

A hiss escapes her lips. She clamps her eyes shut once more, overloaded with sensation. She feels, for lack of a better description, as though she’s been hit around the head with a brick. 

_Has_ she been hit around the head with a brick?

“Morning, sunshine!”

She groans. Not a brick. 

_Tanith_. 

When she pries open her eyes, the light is equally as harsh as it had first been, lurid and painfully fluorescent in stark contrast to how she remembers the rest of the … _house_. Den? Evil lair? The place she’s in now resembles far more closely the interior that she’d expected, when stood out on the roadside. In simple terms, it’s a pit: a cellar, perhaps, less than four metres across, of old, damp stone. 

Directly across, Tanith sits with one knee cocked up and the other stretched out, as if she’s bathing in some imaginary sunlight. Tiny specks of grit litter her hair like ash, which is as tousled as one would expect after being kidnapped, but the skin China can see is relatively unmarked. Bound around her wrists, in a great flourish of irony, are the very shackles she’d brought stuffed in her back pocket. 

There, China realises finally, is the very worst of it. Far deeper than the throbbing pain of her head; more grinding than the tightness of her body, from being thrown upon concrete, is a terrible, bone-deep ache. 

Her magic is gone.

There’s a vast, empty blackness in its place. 

“How long have you been awake?” She asks, finding her throat concerningly dry. 

Tanith shrugs roughly, waving her cuffs. “Not too long, I don’t think. How’s your head?” 

“ _Kineticists_ ,” China growls. Tanith laughs without humour, and the noise succeeds in eliciting a flare of pain in five different places. 

“Bingo,” she says. When she looks up, though, her gaze is measurably cold. “Which is strange, because I thought he was supposed to be an energy thrower.” 

“That’s what was said.”

She watches her stare drop back down to her wrists, where she resumes tugging mindlessly at the metal that encases them. With what appears to cost a lot of effort, Tanith chooses not to speak. Consequently, a silence settles over them - hardly the first one to do so - but something that this time feels strangely unfamiliar. Not unfamiliar, China corrects. This is exactly as it has always been. 

“Why were you so determined to come here?” She asks, after a little while has passed. Tanith looks up sharply. 

“What?” 

“Did you fancy a holiday?” 

“Sure did,” she grumbles. Her voice remains wintry, but she thinks she senses her flash of frustration beginning to ease. Which is just as well, because she doesn’t have the patience to deal with anything less. 

“I can think of nicer destinations.” 

“Nah, it doesn’t get better than this,” she jokes, leaning back against her claimed section of the wall. It’s a piece of real estate that’s patterned with an exclusive, funky-looking moss that may well be a brand new evolution, or the cure for some disease. Or, more likely, the beginning of one. 

“How high is the bounty?” 

“It-“ she trails off, then, and her expression turns rather sheepish. How peculiar. “There isn’t one…”

China raises an eyebrow. There’s always something suspicious about unpaid work, even for those like Tanith that bother themselves with moral standards. Melting against the wall as if in hopes it will swallow her, Tanith tugs absentmindedly at a piece of hair. Her mind races with all of the viable explanations that could cause so much distress. 

“I’d heard how dangerous he was,” Tanith admits, quietly. “I don’t want him on the streets. Not the same streets as Valkyrie.” 

And of course. Little Miss Cain. She’s turning out to be far too likeable for her own good. Which is impressive, considering who she spends her time around. 

“Oh that’s endearing,” she remarks, gleefully. 

“Shut up! Don’t tell her I said that!” 

A dusting of pink tinges Tanith’s cheeks, and her expression twists into something that would suggest she’d just revealed some terrible, mortifying secret. 

“No it is,” she assures, “it’s.. charming.” 

Apparently though, what little sincerity she’d intended to apply had become lost in translation, because Tanith’s hackles are raised in an instant. The anger she’d sensed before riles up full-force. 

“Have you ever cared for anyone?” She bites. 

China flinches. The pain in her head, that had been roaring, dulls to something distant. For a moment, she trusts herself to do nothing more but blink and breathe. 

“Don't you think she could handle herself?” She reasons. Tanith is quick to leap in. 

“When’s the last time you lost a fight, China?” 

The first thing that she thinks is that there wasn’t a fight, not really. If there was, she wouldn’t be stuck in this cellar. He cheated. 

In the next second, though, all of the pieces fall into place with a satisfying _click_. Suddenly, the tension makes perfect sense. For someone like Tanith, fighting is something more than a mere means of defence, or natural response in times of danger. It’s an art form, of sorts. It’s a lifestyle: hours of training, of practice, of refining technique; years spent building honour, reputation and precision- only to be bested two to one. 

She’s a warrior who’s just been beaten, China realises, and she’s sulking. 

Again, she doesn’t exactly feel there was a fair fight. But she also doesn’t make a habit of poking sleeping bears, so she manages to keep this to herself. 

Sensing no benefit, then, in continuing engagement, she decides she may as well find them a way out of here, and makes the perilous journey over to the furthest wall of their new home. There’s a door there, a thick, sturdy-looking slab of wood, that appears to provide the only route of exit. When she had first paid it mind, she’s certain she noticed a glimmer… 

Reaching out, China presses one palm flat against the panel. Just as she’d expected, the faintest of blue glows surges outwards from her touch, casting a luminescent sheen. Their friend dabbles in signum linguistics, then. It isn’t clumsy craftsmanship, if only by a small margin, but it’s far from respectable; if she wasn’t incapacitated by these cuffs, she could have the reinforcement vanish with a wave of the hand. Unfortunately, as it stands, that seems unlikely. She runs her hand over the surface but finds nothing but the promise of splinters. 

If they’re going to make an escape, there has to be another way out. China’s head hurts far too much to think of such things, though, and she retreats back to her corner, pressing her back against the cold, jagged stone. 

“I’m going to leave a terrible review,” Tanith declares, as soon as she’s managed to find some semblance of peace. 

Some measure of time has passed. Not a considerable amount of it, but enough to notice go by, even without the presence of windows or any way to count the minutes. China opens her eyes a crack, letting them adjust to the light. 

“I’m cold,” she continues, “ I miss my sword, and this bed definitely makes the bottom 10.” 

If she’s honest, China isn’t quite sure what it is that’s being referred to as a bed. 

“Four stars, max.” 

“Out of five?”

Tanith shrugs. “I have standards.” 

She presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, taking solace in the swirling colours that dance across her vision. 

“I think it’s time for plan B,” she suggests. 

“Is it my turn to plan?” 

“Show me what you’ve got,” she mutters, surfacing from her technicolour shelter. She can almost hear the racket of the gears beginning to turn in Tanith’s brain. 

“... don’t let him touch you?” 

“Tanith Low,” she sighs, “Your planning privileges have henceforth been revoked.” 

It’s an admittedly complicated factor though, the sheer potency of his discipline. Other kineticists are relatively common, sure, but she’s never before heard of someone with the ability to send another mage unconscious with only the touch of a finger. Unfortunately, she’s now had the honour of witnessing the effects of such a power first hand. And she has no desire to be subject to it again within this lifetime. 

Together, they conjure up the air of something slightly more detailed than Tanith’s original idea, though it would be decidedly more impressive if they weren’t shackled and therefore reduced to mortals. Then again, plan is a rather generous descriptive to use, but she’s so thoroughly uncomfortable that it’s either going to work, or she’s going to shatter these cuffs through will power alone. For them to begin to stand a chance at escape, though, they are going to require a visit to their lodgings. The door, whose mockery of symbol magic leers at her from across the room, will need to be opened. When she’s out of these cuffs, China swears she’s going to pulverise it. 

Until Mr Soto sets the plan in motion, then, there is very little to do but sit and wait. Sitting turns to leaning, and leaning soon evolves to dropping with fatigue. As darkness begins to tug irritatingly at the edges of her consciousness, China turns upon her side in some last-ditch effort at seeking comfort. Tanith does the same, spread out awkwardly across the concrete so as not to aggravate the cuffs. 

When she finally settles, they’re almost close enough to touch. 

She isn’t sure why she notices that. 

The next time she awakens, thankfully much more gradually this time, her headache has dwindled to something much more bearable. It's impossible to discern, what with the lack of sunlight, how much time has passed, and it’s entirely unsettling. 

By the time Tanith lets out a yawn, and begins stretching her legs, another unmarked while has slipped through the cracks. The longer China spends without her magic, the more innately uncomfortable she becomes. It’s an itch beneath her skin that she’s unable to scratch, becoming more prominent by the second. It’s an emptiness in her soul, and a terrible groan from her body, which has never had to sustain itself for so long before now. 

If she develops wrinkles, she’s going to commit war crimes. 

“Are you sure he ever plans to come down here?” 

“He’s got to show sometime,” Tanith reasons, apparently in much better spirits now. Chima watches as she picks up the same pebble she’s been amusing herself with ever since China had stopped listening, and flicks it at the door. A momentary flash of blue gleams over the wood, and then the pebble pings right back towards them. Tanith reaches out, and snatches it between cuffed hands.

China sits back against her section of the wall, feeling the gravel grate against her back. Far from the first time, she finds herself longing for the leather that protects Tanith’s figure. The rest of her thoughts are far too boring to pay much care to, as she slips back into her mind, tuning out the occasional celebratory whoop. Her subconscious is slacking in its provision of entertainment. If only she were a more simple creature. 

Tanith cheers again, as she reaches a streak of three. 

Just as China’s about to succumb to the lull of a natural, old-age death, the distant echo of footsteps sounds. 

The two of them startle. It’s as though a switch is flipped. She snaps out of her miserable trance, and Tanith drops her pebble, fuelled by the promise of action. It’s about time, too: she feels as though she’s spent half of her life in the festering cold, wasting away. To her left, Tanith leaps to her feet on invisible springs. China, fearing that it’s quite possibly begun to grow around her, pries herself from the stone much more carefully. 

“Go time,” Tanith whispers, grinning goofily. 

She nods, brushing specks of dirt from her clothes. When she gets out of here, she’s going to burn them. 

“How do I look?” 

The blonde tilts her head a little, as if she’s calculating something. 

“Perfect,” she says, with a shrug. Something intriguing sparkles in her eyes. 

Although China Sorrows has received millions of compliments just the same, for the first time, her racing mind stills. 

“Not so bad yourself,” she comments, nonchalantly. 

Unfortunately, before her thoughts can truly formulate, the door seal breaks with a final gleam of blue. Into the cellar steps the formidable attacker, who’d bested them - two sorcerers who had brushed against living gods and survived - one against two. The attacker, who stands, to her best estimate, at a little over five feet tall. 

Had he jumped, to reach them? 

At first glance, he looks absolutely nothing like a person who’s previously dismembered a series of human beings. Though, China supposes, the best of men like him tend to look nothing like one would expect at all. His hair, shiny and jet-black, sprouts in odd little tufts atop his head; the skin that she can see is greyish and freckled, but most of it is obscured behind a long, dark coat. His outfit is complete with a pair of dark sunglasses, that completely obscure half of his face. 

When he enters the room, she observes, his steps are small and stunted. His stature gives no impression of physical strength or ability, which he evidently doesn’t find necessary to utilise, and for a person with all the power in the situation that he’s entering, he looks remarkably nervous and twitchy. 

“Welcome!” Tanith jumps in with, grinning. “I love what you’ve done with the place!”

When she moves forwards in a gesture of greeting, he jerks away sharply. Having come bearing no gifts, he fidgets with his hands, looking far too self-conscious for a man facing the two women he’s captured and chained. 

“I want to talk,” he speaks up in a small, warbled voice. 

“We’re all ears,” she encourages. 

Interestingly, he doesn’t turn to look at China when she speaks. His eyes, though she can’t see them, appear to remain fixed to a spot on the floor. 

“Why did you come here?” 

China smiles, placidly. 

“Tanith here,” she gestures, “fancied a weekend away.” 

Tanith nods enthusiastically, and his lip curls in response. At his sides, his fists clench into tight little balls. 

“You aren’t getting out,” he warns, seriously, unwilling to play along. She breathes a laugh. 

She’s beginning to think that when they’d planned their offensive, they may have slightly overestimated the capabilities they were working against. The longer that Soto spends in her sight, practically quivering, the more obvious it becomes to China that his earlier victory was something of a fluke. Without his element of surprise, he’s… useless. The blatancy of his cowardice rolls off him in waves. 

“Are u a betting man, Myles?” 

“No! Tell me why you came here!” 

China tuts, shaking her head. Unfortunately, her tolerance for her own kidnapping has run out. 

On cue, Tanith leaps forward. 

Soto startles and staggers backwards, tripping over his own feet, when she kicks out a leg and sweeps them out from beneath him. He goes down as elegantly as a sack of potatoes. Evidently winded, his arms snatch outwards, and he grabs a hold of her shoulder with surprising strength. China moves to intervene, but before his other hand can do any real damage, Tanith wrenches herself away. In a whirl of hair and leather, she kicks him to the floor again, and he stays down. 

Before he can think about scrambling to his feet, she yanks him upwards by both of his sleeves - exceedingly cautious not to let his skin make contact with her own - and has his arms pinned to his sides. She whirls around him, then, succeeding in twisting his arms over his head, until they’re pressed firmly against his back, cutting off his range of motion. 

The woman’s hands move quickly, too quickly for her to make out exactly what’s going on, but then a flash of silver glints in the light and China snatches the keys from their arc in the air. 

“Always cuff hands at the back, Myles,” she hears Tanith saying, “always at the back.”

“They’re not usually alive long enough to bother,” he huffs, and from what China can hear, she thinks a knee is driven up sharply into his back. 

When she’s managed to fumble them into the lock and the cuffs’ mechanism releases, the entirety of her body sighs in tangible, blissful relief. Magic pours over her thick and fast, washing over her chest and trickling down the nape of her neck. It soaks into her skin, mixing with her blood, energising it, and at long last she can properly breathe. 

Having freed herself, she quickly moves to relieve Tanith of the burden. When the woman’s cuffs crack open, a visible shiver runs down her body, as she shakes out the sensation. An enormous, contagious grin takes over her face. 

Tearing away, China moves until she’s standing face to face with the man who had thrown her in a cellar. As she glares, the countless number of invisible symbols that decorate her skin sing in a glorious harmony, filling her veins with a rush of strength and warmth. She towers over him. He’s swamped in shadow, as her frame blocks out the light. When she takes a final step forward, he begins to visibly tremble. 

Relishing the action, she reaches forward, and plucks the sunglasses from his face. Tanith comes to stand at her shoulder. The second the light hits his ghoulish little face, he immediately averts his eyes. 

“Look at me, Myles,” she purrs.   
  
Although there is no physical sensation attached to the action, China knows, inherently, that her... _mirage_ is operational. Her little Shakespearean party trick. She knows this because of the sharp little intake of breath that Tanith takes besides her. She knows this because the sound is false and mechanical. And deep down, something about it coming from those lips makes her stomach churn. 

“Doesn’t work,” Soto mumbles weakly, straining desperately against his cuffs. 

“Are you sure?” 

He nods stubbornly, locking his jaw. 

“I want to know where it is, Myles.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” 

“Won’t you tell me?” 

“It doesn’t work!” He exclaims, manically. 

And then the strangest thing occurs. Just as she’s about to finalise her taunting, a pair of empty, broken cuffs clatter against the concrete. 

_“What_ the..” 

Before either of them can make sense of it, his clawed little hand is plunging into his pocket, and he swivels on his heel. Something metallic glints in the light again, a momentary flash of silver- and Tanith cries out. 

The noise seems to echo, through the rotten, cavernous halls of this place. Her ears grasp a hold of it, and they don’t let it fade. Through a ringing, slowed-down haze, China watches her partner stumble backwards. 

Miles springs away. His eyes are wild; there’s a blade grasped in his left hand, a stout little dagger- and it’s then that she notices the blood. 

Her eyes dart back. There, on Tanith’s tunic, a dark stain is beginning to blossom. 

China’s magic _shudders_. 

Her intricate markings- coiled and twisting around her skin like serpents- burn alive with a torrent of white-hot, splicing fire. Magic courses through her veins, igniting them in a blinding, blue light, that arcs from her body and pulses around them. She whips around, seeing only red - but he’s gone. 

Pressing her wrist twice, she stumbles out of the cellar, throwing aside the wretched door. She takes the stairs three at a time, and surfaces suddenly in the kitchen. Light bounces off of every jar, creating a daze of reflections and refractions and illuminating rows of disembodied stares and waves. Holding up her palm like a torch, she chases through the room and into the house, blindly throwing daggers of light at any shadow that dares to move. 

After her third lap of the property, though, when she’s dizzy, and breathless, and her adrenaline is fast beginning to fade, she has had no success. 

He’s gone. 

With a major blow to her ego, China forces herself to drop it. There are far more pressing concerns. In a streak of light, she races back down to the pit - and finds Tanith, garishly pale, breathing heavily against the wall. 

“You let yourself get _stabbed?_ ” China snaps, ludicrous. 

“Let is a strong word!” She argues back, looking rather bewildered. “How did he get out of the cuffs?” 

She shakes her head violently, unable to bring reason or logic to mind. 

“We need to go. You need a healer.”

With a great deal of complaining, China heaves the other woman’s arm around her shoulders, pulling her to unsteady feet. By the time it’s taken them to stagger to the door, however, it’s become exceedingly obvious that her store of strength has been depleted. Gritting her teeth, she jabs at a tiny symbol just beneath her collarbone; her muscles flood with artificial power, and she picks up the other woman with ease. 

She turns, expecting some snarky joke or remark, but is met with only silence. 

Tanith’s head lolls lifelessly against her shoulder. 

China’s blood runs cold. Exactly how deep had that knife gone? If Tanith dies, like an idiot, here in her arms, she’ll be shot on the spot by the first person that finds them. No one would have any cause to believe her if she attempted to tell them the truth. And why would they? 

Hap-hazardly securing her passenger, she drags them both to the door and up the stairs. They’ve made it halfway down the endless corridor, passing those god-awful paintings and tacky gilt frames, when the corpse of Tanith Lowe reanimates. 

“My sword,” she growls, “Don’t leave without it.” 

It takes only another minute of searching to locate it, in all of its grandeur; she fastens it securely to her back, thanking the symbol for taking its weight and praying that it won’t decapitate her if she happens to move too quickly. With everything gathered, she carts them to the front door- when out of the corner of her eye, she sees it. 

Her beautiful book - an inch thick of glossy pages, bound with the finest leather and gilded in pure gold - sits upon a low, dusty table. A glass rests atop of it.   
  


Unfortunately, said glass shatters into a million microscopic fragments. 

_He’d used it as a coaster._   
  


China snatches it up, tucks it under her arm, and gets moving. 

  
  


* * *

There are many ways and means to get around a door- several involving physical force, a few of which are far more technical, more finicky- and she knows there’s a hidden entrance around the back. Without awakening the street, though, she isn’t confident in her ability to manoeuvre the both of them over the fence. Especially without succeeding in aggravating her company’s _knife wound_. 

Perhaps, comments the little voice of logic in the back of her mind, she might be over complicating things- a pesky little tendency, of which she isn’t particularly at liberty to indulge. Tanith makes some unconscious groan of agreement. Randomly selecting method seventeen, then, she moves to take hold of the handle; she presses an invisible symbol at the base of her left thumb, shifting their weight to her right leg- when the door swings open. 

_Method one_ , she amends: _check if the door is unlocked_. 

Fortunately, China manages to right herself before she tumbles ungracefully into Bespoke’s hallway. A disorienting moment passes; her eyes adjust to the gloom, and she manages to step over an endearing little pot plant. Rather unfortunately, though, in another step, all of her hopes of a covert operation come crashing down like falling rubble. 

It takes a lot to frighten China Sorrows, and the skeleton does not succeed. She hadn’t noticed him before this second; the shadows cloak his suit, and only the gleam of his white bones remains visible. His hand rests upon the place that she know holds his gun. 

Her jaw clenches. 

“What did you do?” 

For a fraction of a moment, she’s taken aback by the sheer coldness of his voice - his words, like barbs of ice, hang sharply between them in the frigid air. Deeper though, in the pit of her chest, the embers are warm. They’ve been building up for a long time, now. 

They catch alight. 

“You think I did this?” 

Beneath her skin, her magic thrums. It crackles and spits with vigour, and when he moves towards them, it surges to her fingertips and licks at the etchings that cover them. 

“Forgive me,” he says, “is that an unfounded accusation?” 

China closes her eyes. She counts to ten. 

“If I’d have done this, Skulduggery, _then why would I have bothered to bring her here?_ ”

His skull twists sourly to the right. As the moonlight filters through the window, strange dark shapes cast across his figure, curling around his bones, weaving between them, so entrancing, so familiar… 

“Save it for family court,” Tanith mumbles. 

This time, China startles. 

It isn’t as if she’d forgotten about the woman slung around her shoulders, but suddenly she’a kicked back into focus with alarming clarity. Feeling her temporary strength begin to waver, as her anger dissipates, she eases the vice-grip she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. Tanith grunts. She turns to the sound. Her brow is creased; a sheen of sweat, and she quels the bizarre urge to move her hair back from her face. 

Before anyone can move, though, the sound of heavy footfall cuts between them. Another door flies open. Against her side, she’s certain she imagines a sigh of relief- as Ghastly Bespoke, half dressed, comes crashing in to the party. He hits a light switch, flooding them in bright, dingy, yellow, and looks between the three of them a comical amount of times. 

“Skull, what-“ 

“Tanith’s injured,” she cuts in. “Knife wound to the stomach, clean entry and exit, and as far as I can tell it didn’t puncture anything major.”

She follows his eyes again as they dart downwards, and watches, intently, at the way they widen. 

“Why didn’t you take her to a healer?” He asks, moving forwards. “Where have you been? How long did it take you to get here?” 

“We don’t have time for an interrogation. Tanith dear, how long would you say it’s been?” 

Only, when she turns to receive her witty response,she meets only jarring silence. Once again, Tanith Low is a dead weight slung around her shoulders. She checks upon the wound, and finds it glistening with fresh, bright crimson. 

“We need bandages,” she presses instead, pausing to swallow, “iodine, a needle - this isn’t your first time…” 

“And find some leaves,” she adds, softer.

The tentative static of the situation finally breaks, when Skulduggery turns on his heel. The moment doesn’t come a second too late either, she realises - the effects of her sigils are rapidly dissipating, and they’re both going to end up on the floor if she isn’t careful. 

Taking Tanith’s other arm around his own, Ghastly manœuvres them into his kitchen. With a wave of shimmering air, he clears a table; it’s a low, solid-looking thing, which might just be stubborn enough to play as a surgical table. It might just be dark enough to hide the blood, too. 

“Set her down,” he directs. She doesn’t need telling twice. 

The whole time they work, prying away her prized leather jacket, Tanith remains unnervingly still. The quiet surrounding her is like a void. 

“Do you know how many times I’ve offered to make her a jacket,” Ghastly tells her, as he carefully folds the brown leather and sets it aside. “Unless that knife was made of obsidian, it couldn’t have done more than tickle.” 

She watches intently as he peels back her tunic, revealing a dark, angry mess of flesh. He takes a cotton ball, douses it in iodine, and begins to gently rub at the skin, flaking away chunks of dried blood. When it’s clean, it looks remarkably less like a symbol of impending doom. 

Skulduggery appears silently behind her. 

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” he remarks. She takes a moment to reflect upon the intricacies of his deduction, and chooses instead to focus upon Ghastly, who’s threading a needle with something shiny. He’s just about to pierce the skin, his hand impeccably steady, when Tanith again rises from the dead. 

“I miss it,” she groans, “Do you think I’ll find it again?” 

Ghastly freezes, with the needle poised between his thumb and forefinger. 

“You have a terrible sense of timing,” she says, half-amused. Tanith’s eyes widen comically, when she looks down, and realises what’s occurring. She slumps back against the table with a rattling sigh. 

“Now why would I wanna sleep through this?” 

Ghastly sends her a sympathetic smile, but when she nods for him to continue, he doesn’t hesitate. 

Somehow, in between the chaos of it all, China finds her hand in the clutches of a startlingly firm grip. A calloused hand, worn with the persistant abrasion of battle; marked by life and brushed with death. A hand that fits far too comfortably within her own, as if it has known its place there for a lifetime, not a mere haze of minutes. 

When the metal makes contact with Tanith’s skin, her entire body tenses rigid, and she squeezes so hard she fears the bones in her wrist will splinter. Both as a blessing and a curse, she’s out cold again before the stitching job is halfway done, and her hand falls limp in China’s. For some inexplicable, delirious reason, she can’t quite bring herself to let it go. 

Over the years, many have fallen at her hand, either directly or by some unfortunate consequence. Her ledger drips with the red of it. Which is regrettable, really, because she’s always far better suited green. Very few times, though have her actions commanded guilt. Even fewer still, has she stuck around long enough to begin to consider it. 

It’s a strange appearance for herself - waiting placidly aside a sick bed, as if she possesses the time or attachments - she’s all too aware. After all, hadn’t she once said that she didn’t make house calls? 

_Exception is a tool of the cowardly and the unintelligent_ , had said her mother once, many, many moons ago. But then her mother had said a great many things, and most of them weren’t fit to embroider upon cushions. 

“How deep is that?” 

She looks up, pulled from her thoughts. It’s Ghastly. He’s holding out a damp scrap of material, which she’s about as inclined to accept as if it were a dead rodent. He gestures to her forehead. She brings a hand to her face, and is greeted with a familiar, sticky warmth. 

“It’s nothing,” she snaps. She takes the cloth, and wipes off her hands instead. “Focus on that.” 

“Unless you’ve picked up vitakineticism, we’re all done here.” 

China stops, looking over at the wound that now features a uniform row of little black stitches. 

“She’ll be up in a day. She’s had far worse than a stab wound…” his face wrinkles, his scars twisting into strange grooves, “And far better stitches.” 

“I know,” she assures, sharply. 

For a moment, neither of them speak. Then, as if waking from a trance, she mechanically returns Tanith’s arm to its rightful place upon Bespoke’s dinner table, and gets to her feet. 

“Well, if you’re certain you’re done here…” she says, waving vaguely, “I have business to attend to.” 

When at first she stands, her vision has the hall to swim in and out of dizzying focus. She rides it out, swiping her book into her arms, and makes to leave the place that has no bud her welcome for a very long time now. She has no reason to linger. She’s almost at the door, having hurdled over that stupid, godforsaken pot plant, when a voice speaks up. 

“You’re leaving?” Tanith mumbles, suddenly. China stills. 

How deep _did_ that knife go?

After far too long a moment, China forces her head to nod. When she turns back, she meets the softest of stares, and finds herself, for a startling moment, unwilling to leave her newfound partner behind. 

Her gaze, though, like a broken record player, catches persistently upon the dark black stain. Tainted images - of blood, and a scream, and limp, lifeless form- replay within her mind again and again. As she looks at Tanith, she sees his face. She sees his smile. She sees her failure. 

Deep, in the very fibre of her being, something dangerous begins to stir. There’s something she needs to do. 

“I need to change my shoes,” she says, gesturing to her feet. 

And she walks away. 

The cool breeze and clarity of the outdoors rushes forcefully against her skin, as if a bucket of freezing water has been poured over her head. In the distance, she realises, the thick of this endless night is finally beginning to break in a dreamy haze of molten orange. She hasn’t seen the sun in _days_. 

“Let me know when she wakes up,” she calls to Skulduggery, who’s leant silently against the wall as she passes by. 

She receives no indication of a reply, and expects nothing more. 

“I have a phone, Mr Pleasant. I’m sure you can figure out how to use one. I’ll be expecting your call.” 

As the street begins to narrow, the final glimpse she’d stolen of the woman sprawled upon the table: blonde hair spilled over her face with the moonlight, illuminating the rosy colour freshly returned to her cheeks- lingers in China’s mind still, unwilling to fade. The inside of her wrist tingles faintly: the ghost of a touch... 

Unwilling to be forgotten. 

Far above, the stubborn moon turns yellow in the sky. 

With a sigh, China unzips her boots. She strolls with the weight of them dangling from her left arm, swinging slightly with movement. Soft, golden light begins to spill over the road ahead, and she walks, and walks, listening to a bird chirp insolently somewhere above. 

All the while, a tiny little voice at the back of her mind wonders if maybe there’s something more to be discovered, back there. 

But China wouldn’t know these things. After all, China doesn’t love. 

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly I’d like to give a massive thanks to the organisers of this event. Mrs bubblemoon u are a star! It’s always so much fun. 
> 
> Ahhhhhh I rlly rlly hope this wasn’t terrible! I didn’t have as much time as I’d have liked to put into this but i rlly tried to do ur prompt justice. 
> 
> When I realised I was going to have to write someone other than Valkyrie I might’ve freaked a tiny bit, but this turned out a lot of fun and I’m glad I got the chance to now. (I’d like to apologise if they seem too severely out of character. I love my girls.) ‘Twas an honour. 
> 
> I hope you have a lovely Christmas/ whatever you celebrate and a wonderful New Year! Best wishes and stay safe :) <3


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